bad batteries or flaky (factory) solar?

This morning we started hearing a clicking noise at the front of the Safari (under the couch) where all the power connections are. We had never heard that before in the 8 years we have had the Safari. I was pretty sure it was an electrical relay making the noise and confirmed that it was coming from the Sunexplorer charge controller. The relay clicks corresponded with the Charge/Partial/Low LEDs rapidly blinking. The 'Full' LED is solid green. And they also correspond with the changes for Solar Charge Amps reading on the Sunexplorer display. And it was intermittent. OK... The batteries are showing charged (I haven't measured directly yet) and when we returned to the trailer last night we discovered that we had lost AC shore power (interior breaker tripped after external surge protector fried), and we ran the pump and lights off the batteries until I troubleshot that. I'm wondering if we have a flaky solar system or the batteries are finally going. They are the original 2006 Lifelines from the factory. I know we would have noticed the clicking before. I would've woken up if it was doing it last night. The Sunexplorer shows 1.00% (we thought it was the normal 100% until I looked closer), Battery Voltage is 13.7, Solar Charge Amps 0.0 and the Solar Amp hours is only 1.27. I'm scratcing my head. I seems to have stopped and what do you know... the sun is up much higher. Any ideas? Are we just paranoid? :rolleyes: I'm leaning toward batteries but I can't really prove it.



Thanks,

Ken